


Dust-filled Doll

by Ilye



Series: Flawless [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 19:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilye/pseuds/Ilye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Last Alliance, Glorfindel forces himself to vist Lindon one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust-filled Doll

**Lindon, c.5 TA**

 

Glorfindel was glad to be making the trip alone. A strange sense of invulnerability had shrouded him since the Alliance -- he hadn’t lied to Elrond when he said he did not have a death wish by riding without company back to Lindon one last time. It was just that he felt like he was beyond death now.

Since Gil-galad was lost, a numbness had suffused him, like his chest was filled with earth. He had moved like a puppet, automatically doing what was required of him as their broken host and scattered refugees steadily gathered in Imladris for healing, solace and a new start. It had been shrewd Erestor who had made the suggestion, after voicing everyone else’s thoughts that only showed in their furtive, worried glances: Glorfindel needed closure, peace, and grief.

“Please come back,” was all Elrond had said when Glorfindel announced his intentions. Glorfindel was well aware of how bland his answering reassurances sounded, but he simply could not muster the passion of conviction, and rode away soon after.

Now, days later, the smell of the sea crept up on him and started to soften the packed earth in his chest with its familiar damp scent. He halted his horse for a moment, breathed in deeply and closed his eyes before continuing. His pace slowed, first to leisurely and then to one that could almost be termed reluctant, so that the final leg of his journey, which should have taken an hour or two, stretched out into the lengthy summer evening.

A gentle dusk had settled by the time he approached the palace. Before, the many windows and balconies would have twinkled with the lights of candles, but now all save a few were dark. Glorfindel stopped again, his throat suddenly filled with dust, then turned away from the main approach to the palace and sought instead a familiar winding track through the grounds. The track grew narrower and sandier as he travelled, evidence of use by others growing scarcer and scarcer, until finally he could see the rough grass and patchy shrubs give way to the expanse of beach. He dismounted just before he reached the dunes, tethered his horse to a shrub in reach of the grass, and discarded his shoes.

The sand was still warm between his toes; the ocean was loud in his ears. The briny haze above the white horses and the swells filled his lungs with a freshness he had not felt in a long while. As he knelt and leaned back onto his elbows, stars winked into being in the purpling sky above him. Their sharpness pricked into him like needles. Radiant stars, he thought, feeling the packed earth inside him crack painfully as if baked in the midsummer heat. He closed his eyes and lay down under Ithil’s light and the cooling damp of the late summer evening, which was how Cirdan found him some time later.

“Apologies, friend,” said Glorfindel, shifting so that he could look over to where the shipwright had sat next to him on the sand. “I should have announced myself -- time quite got away from me.” The politeness, although automatic, sounded forced, but Cirdan did not seem to notice.

“I had word from Elrond that you were en route,” he said without looking away from the sea, which had progressed up the beach some way since Glorfindel had first arrived. “And then word again that you had reached us earlier this evening.” The waves rushed up the sand as if in acknowledgement, caressing Cirdan’s bare toes before retreating.

_Of course Ossë watches me,_ Glorfindel thought wryly. _All are watching: To see if I break, change, vanish… cease to exist, by divine design or my own. If only I felt enough to care…_

A touch on his wrist startled him and he found the grey eyes of the shipwright upon him. “I am glad you came,” Cirdan said. The honesty was apparent in his expression, though Glorfindel could not tell if he was glad at the prospect of company in his lonely guardianship of the deserted palace, glad of the link to his lost son, or glad for another reason entirely.

Cirdan continued, “Your horse has been found a stable and taken care of. Why don’t you come inside and let me do the same for you?”

Glorfindel hesitated, but did not have the will to resist as Cirdan’s sun-worn hands urged him upright, though he felt pinned to the beach as if by an anchor through his navel. Step by heavy step, he made his way up towards the dark palace, that anchor holding him back through his belly as the strong hand between his shoulder blades pressed him onwards.

A few candles lit the dining hall as they stepped inside. A handful of Elves were sitting at tables, belying the palace’s deserted appearance from the outside. The drapes were closed despite the summer’s warmth, which muted the already quiet conversations and made the place feel secluded, shut off, like a sanctuary. _Or a shroud…_

“Would you care for some dinner?” Cirdan’s voice regained Glorfindel’s attention. His hand had moved from between Glorfindel’s shoulder blades to his bicep, fingers gripping slightly as though he were afraid Glorfindel would turn and run. Perhaps he was right. Glorfindel swallowed down the dust that rose in his throat again and closed his fingers around Cirdan’s. He would not run, though he wanted to.

“Thank you -- but I have no appetite,” he said at last, aware of the seconds yawning into minutes since Cirdan’s question. Suddenly, this all seemed like a bad idea; not the first bad idea he’d ever conceived of since Arda began, either. And yet this was something that he needed to do. “Cirdan, forgive me.” He swallowed again, and with it his forced politeness. “I am no company and your efforts as a host are bypassing me entirely in my current ill humour. I am simply here to… I need to…” He paused, unable to find the words. “Please.”

Cirdan’s fingers tightened on his, then let go. “I know,” he said quietly, “I know. I am frankly floored by your strength and that you have come at all. Glorfindel, there is nothing to forgive. Your heart is still here, I can see, though perhaps not for much longer. Do here what you need to; Lindon is still your home for as long as you wish it to be.”

Grit prickled Glorfindel’s eyes, but he managed an honest smile and bowed his head in thanks. Cirdan touched his shoulder again, pressed a small key into Glorfindel’s palm, then left him.

~~~

Glorfindel found that he had never really noticed the intricacies of the carved wooden doors to Gil-galad’s bedchamber before. What had started out as childish ignorance when he first passed through them had progressed into an impatient burning for what lay beyond them -- now, though, he stood examining the constellations etched into the wood with feet of stone. It took long, long moments and all of his will to force his hand to the doorknob and unlock the door with the key Cirdan had given him.

The creak of the hinges intimated lack of recent use. A thin film of dust blurred the surfaces. Certain items lay out of place: the hairbrush on the dresser; the leggings discarded over the chair arm; the bedsheets not quite made. Glorfindel’s stomach clenched as he realised that he was the first person to enter this room since Gil-galad had left for war and never returned. Unconsciously he moved from the doorway to the dresser; the door slammed shut behind him, making him start and turn around, but nothing was there except the draft and shades of the king.

Gil-galad’s scent still hung in the air, but dusty, musty and faded now. Glorfindel closed his eyes and inhaled. The last time he had been in this room, it had been filled with a presence that reached into every corner, that shone bright with life and vigour. Sounds too had filled the room, first low and serious murmurs, then laughter, and then something breathier, deeper, more intense. Too intense. He shivered, feeling the draft caress his neck like ghostly kisses, and the earth in his chest cracked further, leaving painful fissures instead.

His traitorous feet carried him slowly around the room. Everything, every place, held a memory of its own. In the winged armchair he could almost see a dark-haired figure sitting with a glass of whisky resting on one knee, a blonde head resting on the other. The fireplace, now cold and empty, leapt alight in his mind's eye and suddenly he was kneeling before it, soaked and shivering after a long, desperate midwinter race back from Imladris to bear news of Sauron’s capture, and then strong hands were stripping off his drenched garments and warming him, burning him. The bed...

Glorfindel wheeled around as the room suddenly tilted and he grasped at the edge of the dresser for support. Something brushed against his hand and he looked down to see a letter on the surface in front of him. It was addressed to him.

With trembling fingers he picked it up. It was sealed with red wax stamped with the High King's emblem and was heavy with something enfolded inside. He opened it, careful to peel the wax away from the paper and keep the seal intact, and tipped a golden ring out into his palm.

The ring was new and showed no signs of wear, still shiny from the years it had spent sitting unworn, waiting for its destined owner to find it. It was a simple band, pleasantly weighty without being heavy -- _just the kind of thing that Gil-galad would have chosen._ Glorfindel turned it between his fingers to examine the engravings around the outside, an alternating pattern of stars and flowers. Inside there was script: _I was always yours._

There was that dust again. Throat thick and constricted, eyes prickling, Glorfindel stared at the ring in his palm. Then his fingers closed numbly around it as his eyes slid to the script of the letter. His blood stilled in his veins as he read, like it had suddenly turned to mud. His heart beat harder, louder, in his chest, loosening the packed earth so that at long last it began to crumble away and left a burning, crippling pain in his core. He sank to his knees, gasping for air, as the numbing, grounding insulation finally fell apart and up rose the sobs. Grief claimed him at last.

~~~

He awoke to the chill of the newborn morning, curled into the armchair where he had eventually sought refuge after grief had drained him boneless on the flags. He took stock: an ache pulsed inside him but, strangely, he welcomed the way it twisted in his chest so that he no longer felt like a dust-filled doll. The room was just a room now, without ghosts or surprises. On the floor, the letter lay face-down with the ring on top.

With the clarity of spent emotion and the cold morning’s light, Glorfindel now saw smudges in the dust where the letter had been laid on the dresser, and that the outside of the paper was clean. They told that Gil-galad had not left the letter there on his departure, to be discovered by just any intruder, but deliberately entrusted to a confidante who had laid it out for Glorfindel upon his arrival. They told that Cirdan had known.

Glorfindel eased himself out of the chair, knelt on the floor and turned the letter over. The ring clinked on the stones, but he ignored it.

 

_ My dearest Glaurfindë, _

_ Forgive me. I knew this was coming. You told me yourself, though you do not recall it. The Valar appeared to take your memory when they spoke through you and forewarned me of my own death; they cannot be said to be entirely without mercy, at least. _

_ Do not be angry that I did not tell you. We all deserve peace if others will grant it, and this time around I hope I was at least able to hold back the pain of your second role in history. _

_ Your presence kept me going, despite knowing that my death was approaching. Your constance showed me that death was not to be feared. It was important that I entrusted Narya and Vilya appropriately whilst I had the chance and you played your own great part in that, though you did not know at the time. Though I could not bring myself to burden you with a ring of power, I leave you a ring nonetheless. It is a dreadful thing that you come to be reading this. _

_ Love where you can -- if you can. Forgive me. Do not forget to forgive yourself as well. _

_ I was always yours. _

_ Ereinion _

 

A soft tap on the door preceded its creaking open. Glorfindel looked up cagily to see Cirdan standing in the doorway and rose from the floor. Anger flared inside him. “You knew.”

Cirdan regarded him sadly and nodded. “I knew. I wish I did not.” He sounded wretched. “He came straight to me after Mandos told him, Glorfindel. He was in such a state as I have never seen him; not from fear of knowing his own death, but out of concern for you. He was determined that you should not also have to live with the knowledge that he was going to die. He begged me not to tell you -- _begged_ , Glorfindel, can you imagine?”

Glorfindel sighed, his anger squelched as quickly as it had sparked. He scrubbed his hands down his face, reminding himself that Cirdan had also lost a son. “Who else knew?”

Cirdan came inside and closed the door before he answered. “He told no-one else. Galadriel knew, for there is no keeping anything from her. And Elrond…” His voice dropped as though expecting more fire from Glorfindel. “Ereinion never told him directly, but he has the gift of foresight too and I am sure he had his suspicions.”

“Why did nobody tell me?” Glorfindel’s eyes met the shipwright’s, then he turned away and sat back in the chair. His next words were quiet, directed to the empty room. “Why did he not tell me?”

“Tell you that you were a tool, a vessel, predicting death? _His_ death? Ereinion did not want your time together tainted. He wanted to be with you as you, not angry in the knowledge that you were being used by the Valar. Come - he has told you now, in his own way. He has explained. Do not be angry with him for wanting to be happy whilst he was with you, for clearly you meant that much to him.”

Glorfindel sighed again. “I am not angry -- not with him.” He paused, rose, and picked the ring and the letter off the floor. The silenced tightened between them whilst he rolled the golden band between his fingers, brow furrowed and eyes distant. Finally he spoke again, slipping the ring onto his right forefinger in an almost unconscious movement.  “I am not angry. But I can’t stay here any more, Cirdan, not in this place of lies. I will make arrangements for the horses remotely, but now, I need to go home.”


End file.
